Breaking the Carbon Chains https://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com
Changing the way we live in the world we live in.Mon, 12 Jun 2017 04:41:09 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://breakthecarbonchains.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/cropped-web-single-boot-light.png?w=32Breaking the Carbon Chains https://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com
3232The Adventure is overhttps://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/2017/06/12/the-adventure-is-over/
https://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/2017/06/12/the-adventure-is-over/#respondMon, 12 Jun 2017 04:33:58 +0000http://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/?p=240More The Adventure is over]]>I’m back from my big adventure, biking Route 66 from Vega, Texas to Chicago, Illinois. It was a grand adventure, and awesome. Two months of being out on the road, biking every day (well mostly every day), being outside, meeting new people, spending time with my folks, and drinking wine with my Mom every evening (yes, we do love our wine). The adventure was great, but it was really tough to come back and have reality hit you full force in the face. Well, for me it was the yard, totally out of control in the two months I was gone and the responsibilities of life come at you. For the last two weeks I spent a good amount of time on my house, trying to get it ready to be a low maintenance home for the future. My goal is to get it solid enough so that I can rent out a room and have one lucky roommate who will basically have a house to themselves when I’m out on the next great adventure. But today, I tried to re-capture the spirit of adventure. I drove over to Bend to watch a good friend of mine who is participating in the MFA program at OSU-Cascades, perform in a Murder Mystery. I checked out a new brewery and restaurant for lunch, drove to the top of Pilot Butte and hiked down the trail for a while. It is a cloudy day, but I can imagine that the view from Pilot Butte in the summer is absolutely amazing. And you could even see Mount Hood, well the base of it as the top was in the clouds, like the rest of the Mountains. Adventure for me, can be as simple as going someplace I have never gone, or just changing my day up into something unexpected. How do find adventure in your life?

Adventure is it at your doorstep, and you don’t have to wait for the big adventure or to be Financially Independent to have a mini adventure.

Filed under: Uncategorized]]>https://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/2017/06/12/the-adventure-is-over/feed/0Lone treebreakthecarbonchainsThree Financial Independence (F.I.) money philosophieshttps://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/2017/03/23/three-financial-independence-f-i-money-philosophies/
https://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/2017/03/23/three-financial-independence-f-i-money-philosophies/#respondThu, 23 Mar 2017 03:20:21 +0000http://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/?p=207More Three Financial Independence (F.I.) money philosophies]]>There are 3 philosophies on money that I used to get to F.I. Here is my take on the philosophies and how I used them in my life.

Your Money or Your Life

This book came out in the 1990’s, but the first time I had heard of the concept of financial independence, it was from a friend who had taken the course “Transform your relationship with Money”. The most revolutionary concept from the book, is that you could earn enough money that at some point when you had enough you could use excess to change the world. I read the book, because the internet wasn’t a thing yet, but now they have a web site full of resources for living Financial Independence. http://www.financialintegrity.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

Some of the ideas still stick with me all these years later:

Cross over Point

The point where your expenses are low and your income covers your expenses. This was fun to do, you put up a wall chart that showed your growing dividend income and your expenses and you did it monthly and you would watch the two points grow closer together and until you reached the cross over point. If I find my old copy, I’ll take a picture and post it.

Fulfillment curve

That you can only buy so much, and after a certain amount of purchasing you no longer get satisfaction from owning or purchasing more. You have enough. Excess, or buying more than you need it just clutter and takes your time away from what you value in your life.

Tracking every penny of expenses

Once you track your expenses and put them into categories you ask how you feel about your expenses with the following 3 questions. You just give them a +/- or 0 no effect.

Did I receive fulfillment, satisfaction and value in proportion to the life energy spent? (You have to calculate your time = money)

Is this expenditure of life energy in alignment with my values and purpose?

How might this expenditure change if I didn’t have to work for a living?

Dave Ramsey – Financial Peace

I first heard of Dave Ramsey on a NPR radio story around 2002. He wasn’t broadcast in the west coast yet, so I started listening to his podcast. This was right after my divorce, when I was in serious debt, had no job and had to pay my ex for his ½ of the house. Listening to the caller’s on Dave’s show, was like a daily reminder and motivation of where my life could go. It made to me to want to reach the point where I could call the show and yell. “I’m debt free”. Those callers were so inspirational and that is what I needed at a time when everything seemed impossible, I didn’t even have a job, for goodness sakes! The tools:

Baby steps

The baby steps were 7 steps to financial freedom. They were like goals mapped out for me and I love goals. I still have the baby steps printed out, and I wrote down the day that I reached the goal. The first 3 goals were the easiest to achieve, so you feel very motivated to keep going.

Step one: $1000.00 to start Emergency Fund

Step two: Pay off all debt using the debt snowball

Step three: 3 to 6 months expense in savings

Spending Plan

Spending all your money on paper before the month begins. – This was a different kind of budgeting that YMYL tracking every expense. Instead you spend intentionally on paper (or computer doesn’t matter), you just have to decide where all your money is going to go at the beginning of the pay period. Once you spend all your money on paper, if there is any left you decide where it will go. I still use this method today.

Financial Peace Class

I took the Financial Peace University course. It’s a course where you meet with others who are looking to get debt free. The best part was that you had others to talk to about debt, spending and we learned from each other. It has a Christian focus, but Dave makes is accessible for all participants (at least he did then, I haven’t listen to him in several years). Where I took the class we did have a prayer because the course was led by a pastor. It really motivated me to keep on track, and share with others who were on the same journey. Which leads to the most important tool:

100% Focus for a short period of time.

Dave recommends selling things, taking on part-time jobs, looking for more income and making short-term sacrifice to start seeing results. Seeing results motivates you to keep going. He has some memorable sayings:

“Gazelle intensity” – you go fast when your being chased by a lion.

“Boom! Get after it”

He has some statistics about how long it takes for each of the baby steps and I pretty much met the averages. Eighteen months to pay off the debt, seven years to pay off the house. Dave’s focus is about being free of debt. Once I reached debt freedom, his program didn’t serve me as well and I no longer listen to the podcasts.

At this point in my Financial Freedom Journey, I wandered around being debt free, saving some money, but spending more on travel and other indulgence since I felt I had been sacrificing for so many years to reach my debt freedom. Then I found Mr. Money Mustache.

Mr. Money Mustache (MMM)

MMM is “Financial Freedom through badassity” and he provides a view from someone who is there. Where financial Independence is real and all you have to do is get it and embrace it. There are some specific posts that really encouraged me to take the plunge and say “Yes! I have enough, I don’t have to work any more”.

Money management is a lot like dieting, you can read all the diet books you want, but until you are ready to change your eating habits, nothing is going to happen. F.I. was like that for me. Even though I learned about YMYL and applied the steps for a while, once I was a mother and wife, I focused on other things. When I got my first job after the divorce in 2004 (I had been a stay at home mom for 8 years), I applied the Dave Ramsey steps and reached debt freedom in 2011. Then I wandered around in the financial wilderness, continuing to working enjoying the extra income, having fun, but not working on F.I. Once of my favorite bloggers issued a $100,000 challenge, to save up that much money as quickly as you could, lacking a specific goal in my life, I took up the challenge. It took me three years. Once I reached that goal, then what? Make the leap to F.I. and give it a go. After all those years of working hard to reach a goal, it is a huge adjustment to stop working and just appreciate what you have.

Filed under: Financial Independence]]>https://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/2017/03/23/three-financial-independence-f-i-money-philosophies/feed/0web 3 dollars HbreakthecarbonchainsInflationhttps://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/2017/03/20/inflation/
https://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/2017/03/20/inflation/#respondMon, 20 Mar 2017 03:10:37 +0000http://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/?p=143More Inflation]]>We had lots of good conversations at the MMM gathering, but towards the end we had a debate about the effects of inflation. I thought I would do some antidotal comparisons based on my mothers recurring expense journal that she kept from 1959 to 1977 and my own sporadic expense records. I’m not going to do the math to calculate the rate of inflation because not everything is equal. My point is that inflation assumes a constant rate of consumption of the same things every year, but we don’t consume the same things, or even consume things in the same manner every year because we don’t need the same things.

So here are some numbers for fun:

Category

1959

1977

2006

2017

Food

Couldn’t find an expense record

341.76 Family of 5 and we didn’t dine out except maybe once a month at McDonalds when you could get a meal for a $1

320.00 Family of 2 and including all dining out dollars.

333.00 Family of 2 including all dining out dollars.

Housing/Mortgage

63.10

134.00 The house was refinanced for an addition to the house for the growing family.

455.00 Does not include insurance or taxes

0 house is paid for

Power

33.53

84

77

202

Phone

8.52

10.12

25

73.52

Car insurance

33.00

80.81

183.57

204

Other fun expenses.

Drivers license March 1959 $2.50

Book of the month club May 1959 4.09

Filed under: Financial Independence Tagged: inflation]]>https://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/2017/03/20/inflation/feed/0web Journal 1977 2breakthecarbonchainsThe value of free before and after F.I.https://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/2016/12/24/the-value-of-free-before-and-after-f-i/
https://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/2016/12/24/the-value-of-free-before-and-after-f-i/#respondSat, 24 Dec 2016 19:06:04 +0000http://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/?p=197More The value of free before and after F.I.]]>Before Financial Independence, free was a side hustle for me. I always worked on increasing my income by asking for raises every year, but I wasn’t committed to taking the extra time from my life to work another job. So free was the way I ensured the money I made, stayed in my pocket. I prided myself on my resourcefulness, I felt clever for they many ways I made do. It was like a secret weapon, when others were buying new clothes; I was at garage sales getting a bargain. I’ve only been F.I. for 3 months, but my perspective on free is not as comfortable as it was when I was struggling to get here.

Today I went to get free firewood. This firewood was open to anyone and there was a lot of it. I can afford my own firewood, but since free is built into my side hustle DNA, I just had to go. Once there, I wondered, was I taking wood from people who might really need it? But I argued with myself, there is enough wood for many people, those who hustle, get it and it’s environmental because the wood will go do the dump if not claimed (mill ends). Free required 2 and ½ hours of my time to load the wood and then stack it. However it was a good 2 ½ hour workout. Back and forth I argued with myself, should I take free firewood? (I did.)

I do not consider myself rich because I don’t have millions in the bank, but I do consider myself lucky, because I have more than most and the freedom to live my life the way I want. But with this feeling of wealth, I am acutely aware of those around me who have less. I just don’t feel as clever with my free side hustle as I used to.

I recently left my job (8 weeks ago) because I could (yeah!). I’m 54 (now 55) and many people did ask me what was I going to do? Would I look for another job? Was a I retiring? Since I worked in a higher education setting I tried to give them answers they could relate to; I’m taking a gap year, I’m taking a sabbatical, I’m living off my savings until I run out (I won’t), it’s a mini-retirement. But they all wanted to know how I did it. There were several answers that they could understand without me being preachy. One answer: My fixed expenses are low. My house is paid for (7 years of sacrifice by me), my son’s college is paid for (thanks dad! for the college fund), my electric bill is low (only two people, 1200 sq ft house, line drying, efficient light bulbs, etc), water is bill is low (could be lower, but I do enjoy the luxury of the dishwasher), no cable bill, no internet bill (paid for by grown college son, thanks son!), low garbage service (every other week because we don’t generate much garbage), paid for cars, low insurance(old cars), low food bills (mostly vegan household). Some couldn’t relate but others could see the possibility, but all were fascinated. I wasn’t shy I gave them all my expense numbers (they did ask after all).

My second answer: With my bills so low I saved up a pile of cash. This they were astonished by. This total number I did not share, because I don’t want to make them feel bad. Because although I have advantages of living in a great bike commute city, with free city buses, great farmers markets, reasonable housing prices, etc, they do too and have not chosen the same path as me.

My third answer: Check out – Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, Dave Ramsey and Mr Money Mustache blog as I used all of the philosophies to get here.

The other thing they all wanted to know, and actually I think this is where some people are fearful, what are you going to do with your time? Even I didn’t know the answer to that question, but my standard reply was “I’m going to take 6 months to recover my soul”. They loved that answer, somehow that answer hit home with them.

Although it’s hard to talk about money, we should talk about it more. I think we FI’ers should talk about our choices, if for no other reason then to save our soul and those of our friends and family. (Soul is not used in a religious context, but a self context).

Filed under: Financial Independence]]>https://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/2016/11/27/talking-about-money/feed/0Change bowlbreakthecarbonchainsWeek 3 of FIhttps://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/2016/10/17/week-3-of-fi/
https://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/2016/10/17/week-3-of-fi/#respondMon, 17 Oct 2016 18:08:26 +0000http://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/?p=165More Week 3 of FI]]>Beginning week 3 of being unemployed, semi-retired, vagabond. The first two weeks were very busy, I had lists of things I wanted to accomplished. A friend and I held a Garage Sale the very next weekend, a Saturday and Sunday Garage Sale, which for Corvallis is unusual. My garage is cleaner yet again (purge number 4?). I consigned of the pine dresser and the oak bookcases at the ARC thrift shop. Just one more thing to drop off today at Habitat for Humanity, the electric grill. Firewood is being delivered today. But enough of the things I’ve done.

Check in on my emotional health. The first week I had to make a conscience decision not to think about work. Now two weeks later, I wonder about them and how they are doing, but I can’t imagine that they really need me. I just think, they think, they need me. I did drop off the thank you notes and I still have a little bit of an emotional allergy to the place. But then I had a phone call with a former co-worker and it was good to hear her voice and I think they wanted to know how I was as well. I need to remember the good relations with the people there that made it worthwhile to go to work. When you work with good people 8-9 hours a day, you really get to know them and they get to know you. It isn’t possible for me to keep the same level of relationships going with 20+ people without the work environment. It is like moving away from family, you know they are still there, you just don’t see them as much. There is a soap making party this Friday, so it will be a good get together to re-connect without the work environment.

I think I’m OK. Not depressed, not angry, but not yet energized about what I’m going to do with my future. And I want to be careful to use this first six months as recovery. I have a short 7 day stay in Hawaii which will help, I’m sure. In Corvallis we have had storms and the days are getting shorter, so that is a little depressing. I’m not sure why I have to stay in Oregon, if fairer weather elsewhere would be more beneficial to my health. I will just need to find some part-time work to do elsewhere because it will cost me to be elsewhere. It doesn’t cost me much to be at home. I don’t want to let the money choices make all the decisions, but I also feel a need to be productive. Just going and sitting may not meet my needs. (but maybe it could?)

There should really be a class or guide on how to handle the transition from working to FI maybe there is one and I just haven’t found it yet.

Filed under: Financial Independence]]>https://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/2016/10/17/week-3-of-fi/feed/0Garage SalebreakthecarbonchainsAdvocating for a vegan diethttps://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/2016/06/03/advocating-for-a-vegan-diet/
https://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/2016/06/03/advocating-for-a-vegan-diet/#respondFri, 03 Jun 2016 19:04:18 +0000http://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/?p=231More Advocating for a vegan diet]]>It’s not enough to say your vegan for ethical reason and the treatment of animals. And although those are good reasons, it misses the point. Daily and large consumption of animal products is bad for your health. But how do you communicate that message in a positive way that people will understand. And if people did understand would they be mad at the mis-information they have been fed (pun intended) all these years? Mad, like I am, and say the game is rigged? The game is rigged, but the message has to be acknowledging that this is currently a cultural norm, just like how smoking once was a cultural norm and that the cultural norm is no longer working for human health. If a doctor had said to me, your cholesterol is caused by daily and /or large consumptions of milk, dairy, cheese and butter, would I have listened? And the answer is probably, because just as diabetics believe sugar is the problem and hypertension believe that is a salt problem, both groups have been willing cut back on two symptoms of the consumption of animal products. But salt, sugar and fat cannot be delivered, in large quantities, when eating a vegan diet or really a Whole Food Plant Based (WFPB) diet. And I don’t like the name vegan diet, because it doesn’t express what you are supposed to eat. Oreo’s are vegan for god’s sake, and an Oreo is neither a plant or animal, it is man made, not whole food, not plant based, but still sold as food.

Here is what I don’t get. Why, when I have ready many diet books, do I believe the China Study? Every diet book loads the book with references to scientific studies, but the science laid out in China Study, is convincing to me. What about the subject of eating plants and not animal products rings of truth? And why, is what you eat still a subject of belief and not science? I don’t know, but I am now convinced that no matter what your physical health is currently, consumption of animal products is dangerous to your health, anything you can do to reduce or eliminate them from your diet will improve your health, today, tomorrow and long into your very long future.

What do you believe and why?

Filed under: Superior Health Tagged: consumer culture, cultural norms, vegan, WFPB, Whole Food Plant Based]]>https://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/2016/06/03/advocating-for-a-vegan-diet/feed/0Veggie TurkeybreakthecarbonchainsHow long do you want to live?https://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/2016/05/31/how-long-do-you-want-to-live/
https://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/2016/05/31/how-long-do-you-want-to-live/#respondTue, 31 May 2016 18:33:00 +0000http://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/?p=176More How long do you want to live?]]>I’m trying to build a rhythm to my day, trying to imagine how it will be without steady job to go to every day. I’m thinking a morning cup of tea, walk to the river to practice my meditation and then home to write for a few minutes. I think I have a lot to say, and putting in a practice of writing will help hone my skills. And I think in everything going forward it should be considered practice. Practice to meditate, practice to be a better cook, practice an instrument, practice a being a good friend, practice at organizing things.

In the book radical remission, the book asks how hold do you want to be? In other words, how long to you want to live? That question is different then “are you afraid of dying?”, it cause you to think about what you want to do with your remaining years and how you want to fill them. I want to live to be 104. Why 104? I have been on this earth 54 years, in those years, I grew up which took 20 years, raised a family which took 20 years, served in the military 7 years, went to college 2 years, and worked at ch2m hill for 5 years before getting married and starting a family. Now imagine you have another 50 years, only this time 20 years are not needed for growing up, and 20 years are not need for raising a family. And you have all the time in the world because of a steady source of income, what would you do with the same productive years?

To start, I need to ensure that I am healthy, and I have clearly not taken care of my body well for the last 12 years. To get a full productive 50 more years, health has to be first. I’m not in bad health, but I’m not in fantastic health, which is what you need to be productive. Two areas I would like to focus on in my next 50 years, are music, I will obviously have time to master more than one instrument, and something that makes an impact on the environment around me.

How long do you want to live and what do you want to do with it?

Filed under: Financial Independence, Life thoughts, Superior Health]]>https://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/2016/05/31/how-long-do-you-want-to-live/feed/0Dock side Willamette RiverbreakthecarbonchainsRaison d’etrehttps://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/2016/05/28/raison-detre/
https://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/2016/05/28/raison-detre/#respondSat, 28 May 2016 17:28:38 +0000http://breakthecarbonchains.wordpress.com/?p=155More Raison d’etre]]>I just finished a book called Radical Remission: Surviving Cancer Against All Odds by Kelly A. Turner, PHD. The book is about fighting cancer, but I found it so inspirational in a different way. This book really points to the things we are missing in this hustle bustle way of life – like fun, creative and joy. Thinking about fun, creativity and joy gets me excited. It makes me want to eat right, it makes me want to be healthy, so I have the energy to do more things.

What would you do if you have a certain number of years to live? I think there are two things I would like to do more of, 1. Music. I obviously love to sing, I can learn to play an instrument to help me out with that, even if it is the morning daily joy of singing. 2. Energy (of a different kind) I was inspired by Mark Ruffalo and his organization 100% org. It’s about moving the country to 100% renewable energy. But it seems to me that it’s not just about renewable energy but about making life cheap and affordable. Because if you can make life cheap and affordable, then you free up the creativity of all people, instead of working. Work is a good thing, but think about if you were working for something you want to do in the world, some improvement, some passion, something that pulls you so much that you just have to do it. Imagine if we could all have that time for creativity. That concept excites me!

The eat local movement is something I try to practice in our local community, and it’s a great idea that I endorse. There are mutliple goals; to create a local sustainable food source; to improve farm worker health; to reduce the carbon foot print by reducing the food miles from farm to consumer; encourage local support of local farmers. But what about the real problem? Would we care that our oranges came from Florida if they arrived in a non-carbon way? If the workers were paid fair wages? I guess that is the point of fair-trade food. Imagine a world where all food was moved by electric vehicles powered by the sun. Think of the diversity and variety of food that we could enjoy, if just the mode of transportation was improved. I’ll continue to eat local, but dream of a day when I don’t have to think about the environmental and ethics of the food I eat, because we all know that is was fairly and sustainably produced. We can all dream can’t we?